IMac 24" Problems Galore . . . advice?

I just received my new IMac 24" with the Leopard disk included. While running the new machine with the pre-loaded Tiger, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Post-Leopard download is when the frustrations began. For instance:
1. Chimes at start up were very quiet, almost muted. The volume settings on the machine were fine but the chimes were nearly non-existent. Not a huge deal but it was the first oddity I noticed.
2. Boot-up time is ridiculously slow; I understand Leopard is "more complex" but the start up is triple in time compared to Tiger on my old IMac G5.
3. ITunes: again, start up time is off the charts. It takes over a minute to begin. Granted, I have 5800 songs and a number of movies but compared to my former set up this is about ten times slower than it should be.
4. SLEEP MODE: it will NOT wake up without a hard reset. This is the most disconcerting flaw in the machine. I know I am not alone and would be interested if anyone has overcome this glitch?
I spoke to AppleCare and I was unimpressed. I was told by the frontline guy that I would "need to replace the machine" and was elevated to the next level of service. I was put on hold for over an hour and ran out of time to sit and wait any longer. Disappointing experience with AAPL is my first and hopefully last.

coltsfan53 wrote:
Boot-up time is ridiculously slow; I understand Leopard is "more complex"
but the start up is triple in time compared to Tiger on my old IMac G5.
That's not normal. Leopard boots in 25-30 seconds on my 2.16 GHz iMac.
I spoke to AppleCare and I was unimpressed. I was told by the frontline guy that I
would "need to replace the machine" and was elevated to the next level of service.
Since Tiger ran without problems, it's not likely to be a hardware failure. Did the
AppleCare phone droid tell you why he thought "replace the machine" was in order?
Try clearing NVRAM and resetting the SMC. If that doesn't help, do a clean reinstall
from the Leopard DVD with the 'Erase & Install' option. It makes no sense to replace
the machine before eliminating the possibility of a software SNAFU.
Looby

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IMac 27" Problems galore

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I am an experienced mac user and take good care of my machines - everything is up to date and I've tried all the troubleshooting advice I've been given by apple. Apple will not replace the machine without first replacing the HD - something that will be a gross inconvenience to me and is not guaranteed to work.
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comprachio wrote:
ah right I follow now. To do that I'll either have to buy another HD or wipe my bootcamp HD:( Neither is an appealing option though.
I have two external drives for backup: One for Time Machine, one for SuperDuper!. I wouldn't think about doing otherwise, as they complement each other functionally. Regardless of your current issue, I (and I think most folks) would strongly recommend that you do indeed get a second external backup drive, for a clone backup (either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner). You may as well do that now, as it will then enable you to create the clone (as I said, I believe it's something that you really should have anyway) and use it to help diagnose your current problem. And if it turns out tht your internal drive is failing, it's much easier to use a clone than TM to recover everything to a new internal drive.
I got my iMac at the start of December 2009. HD is WDC WD1001FALS-40U9B0 which is identical to the HD in my last iMac (which didn't grumble or groan).
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Personally, I never had much confidence in WD drives...but I know a lot of folks who simply love them. I used to think that Seagate was the only way to go. However, I've changed my opinion of Seagate of late. In fact, I don't think any of the drive manufacturers are currently building quality products: They've off-shored most of their production to second/third-rate assemblers and suppliers and, consequently, lost significant quality oversight and control. Mind you, that's simply my opinion, but if you mouse around the newsgroups and forums and read experience-based user opinions, you might arrive at a similar conclusion.

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Have an iMac. Problem is I hear the fan noise, yet no power on the screen yielding no power. I have checked the power cord and it seems to be fine. Not sure if computer is a total loss. What would be the next step?

Have an iMac. Problem is I hear the fan noise, yet no power on the screen yielding no power. I have checked the power cord and it seems to be fine. Not sure if computer is a total loss. What would be the next step?
<Email Edited by Host>

What does the EMC# say on the base?

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Thanks for all the speedy replies.
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This was reassuring news, I have been using Spyder2express with both the bundled calibration software and another professional (and high revered) software, which name is completely lost to me right now.
In both cases, with blinds shut, lights turned off and no other interference, I got a beige/dark result from both. With a bit of flicking with the settings, I managed to produce only a sick magenta result.
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Three replacement i7 iMacs so far. Advice?

I purchased an i7 iMac on November 27, 2009 after my 4 or 5 year old iMac G5 simply shut off one day and wouldn't turn back on. The i7's seemed really nice, so instead of repairing my G5, I figured it'd be a good excuse to make the move to Intel.
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I also think that I'm not particularly good at talking with support. I don't get very far. If anyone has had similar problems, and has had a satisfactory outcome, could you fill me in on what to say to support?
Anyway, I'm really sorry that this turned out to be so long and meandering. If anyone has any advice as to what to do though, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks everyone.
Message was edited by: discni
Message was edited by: discni
Message was edited by: discni

Hey... thanks for the replies everyone, and best of luck to everyone who is also having issues if you haven't gotten them sorted yet.
I ended up going for another replacement because I need this computer pretty badly. They threw in a free 4GB iPod shuffle this time, which was nice. The computer was delivered on March 8.
The good news:
The hard drive and screen are silent. Just a tiny bit of occasional hard drive noise when the computer is very busy, but nothing like the constant noise I was having before. I had almost convinced myself, against my own better judgement, that I couldn't possibly be so unlucky and that, somehow, the noises that the previous computers were making were just normal. This computer completely validates the noise issues though. It's much quieter.
The bad news:
1. There are maybe 9 or so dead pixels along the bottom third of the screen. Disappointing, but not such a big deal, I suppose.
2. There is what sounds like a louder, constant whirring fan (maybe?) noise that wasn't present with any of the other computers. It's loud enough to be obvious in comparison to the others I've had, but subtle enough to not be very annoying. Not a big deal either really, but...
3. When I turned the computer on and started the setup process, I didn't have the option to use my wireless network like I had with the other computers. It just wasn't present at all. It took maybe 15 minutes or so of me thinking that something might be wrong with my AirPort Express before I just skipped it and moved on. After I got everything set up, I went to configure the AirPort settings myself... and there doesn't seem to be a wireless card in the computer at all. No AirPort options under 'Network' in System Preferences. My AirPort Express doesn't show up in AirPort Utility. If I open System Profiler and select 'Network', there is no AirPort listed under 'Active Services'.
So... I've just been sitting around bummed out for a few days now. It seems I'll be calling Apple again in the next day or so. I guess I'll be updating this thread again whenever that happens.
Thanks again for the replies everyone.

A familiar 'Illustrator CS3 on iMac G5' problem?

Hello folks,
I should possibly post this on the Adobe forums too, but I'd like to cover the 'hardware' angle here first.
I'm a graphic designer. I've been working on a multiple-page newsletter in Illustrator CS3 (granted, I should normally use InDesign CS3, but I had to stay with Illustrator for this particular assignment). Each page is on its own layer and the entire document has character and paragraph styles applied to its type.
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Boot up from your System Install Tiger DVD & run the repair disk/permissions options.
You may also wish to do the following if your fans are still running louder than usual.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301733 iMac G5: How to Reset the SMU (iMac G5, the iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor), and the iMac G5 (iSight)).

Imac 27'' problems and no fix???

Hi i will start by saying this will sound like a moan but trust me it needs to heard to be believed.
The last 12 months i have owned 1 refurbished Imac 24" 1 new Imac 24" and 6 imac 27'' machines.
Every one of these machines have been faulty and I have had replacements and upgrades all have been faulty. Upgrades i might add have been out of my pocket. Apple replaced same value items at no cost to me i chose to pay more on the basis that the better machines would have a better chance of being fault free. But i was very wrong.
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When DVDs are burned they are burned corrupt you can not play the entire video on the disks, on any player.
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The only discs that will work are the ones that should have come with the computer. If the vendor doesn't have them, call Apple at (800) 275-2237 and ask for a set to be sent to you. Be specific as to the exact model and they will replace them for a nominal fee. If possible, go after the person /store which sold it to you and insist they give you the discs! If it was through eBay, lodge a complaint with Paypal, unless it was specifically stated that there were no discs.
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Miriam

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After upgrading to Lion on our iMac (2008) [Intel Core 2 Duo], which had been originally running 10.6.8, we began experiencing lots of strange problems (intermittent crashes, freezing). On Saturday, the whole computer just shutdown and couldn't be restarted.
I attempted to install a new OS from a Snow Leopard CD purchased when we upgraded from the original software (10.5.2) by first building a new partition (Mac OS Journaled, GUID) and then installing Snow Leopard, but at the very end of the process, got an error message stating the installation failed.
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At various points during this whole process, I've sometimes been able to boot from the CD from startup by pressing C, but sometimes that fails, and I have to hold down the option key. Sometimes that even fails, and I've had to clear the memory, and restart, going through various iterations just to get the Mac to see the CD.
Any advice on how to get from Leopard to Snow Leopard would be much appreciated. Before Lion was involved, there were no problems in the upgrade process, but now that I'm trying to rebuild, it seems like things are going massively awry.
Also, it seems like the specs on Lion indicate it should be stable on this type of machine, but clearly it isn't. I've read about some incompatabilities with graphics cards (we have a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS), but I don't know if this was the problem or not. If anyone knows what could have happened with the Lion issue, I would be curious about that too.

After "successfully" installing a version of 10.5.2 onto the iMac, I ran a Verify Permissions and received a long list of Open Error 5 problems, which could not be fixed using the Disk Utility on the Mac itself, nor with a downloaded copy of DiskWarrior. Also, when verifying the hard drive, there was an invalid sibling link error, and it stopped the verification process - there was no option to repair.
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Is the next step to try and run disk utility from the install CD to try and fix these errors?
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I have several other Mac products connected to the same wifi- which all run perfectly.
I have tried adding a new location, changing the IP address to the same as my laptop with no success.
02 (my service provider) say everything their end is running fine and i shoud contact Apple. The cover for the system has ended, so no help from Apple. IP
i have my IPv4 configure on manual
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They is who?
I would recommend carefully going over the DNS settings. It sounds like you may not be familiar with what that does or how it works. Most ISP's supply their own DNS settings and they can cause issues. I'd recommend looking over
http://www.macworld.com/article/1146064/troubleshootdns.html
Also on the bandwidth you need to download and install iStumbler to see what channel your router is using and what channel your neighbors use. Most routers have a default of channels 5 or 6 and most users never change them. So if you live in a heavily populated area with a lot of Wi-Fi networks you can be competing for the same channels. By changing your channel to one not being used in your area then you have eliminated that possibility and possibly solving the problem.
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Now It won't startup completely, it gets to the desktop and then hangs before displaying the dock or menus. In safe mode it start up completely but 1 mouse click on anything brings up the rainbow cursor. starting in single user mode is fine and I can run fsck no problem. At this point I'd startup from the Apple Installer CD and reinstall the OS but it goes into kernel panic when I try! I tried target disk mode and ran Disk Utility from another Mac, the hard drive needed some volume header repairs but it didn't help. I'm running out of options here. Anyone? Please!

Hi, Just want to add that you are not the only one with that problem.
I've also tried everything that is recommended on the Apple support sites.
My iMac G4 (got it from a friend) ran well on Panther, but now it has the same startup issue after upgrading to Tiger. It will only run in safe mode. Without - no chance.
If one advice is to formate your HD, I did it at least four times with the same results.
Another advice given on the support site is to check the Classic part on your HD - I don't have one so that can be excluded as well.
My local Apple store spoke vaguely about some RAM problems ormotherboard issues that might occur.
I will have the machine tested next week and say what the outcome is, if not by chance someone knows the problem.
Good Luck
Jürgen

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Actually, I think it'san early 2006.

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